


Whole Again

by saintmichael



Series: Whole Again [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x19 coda, Happy Ending, M/M, adam is incapable of kicking a dog while its down, bc apparently I hate myself?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27606323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintmichael/pseuds/saintmichael
Summary: Michael dies. But come on, this is Supernatural. He’ll be fine.
Relationships: Michael/Adam Milligan
Series: Whole Again [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120355
Comments: 7
Kudos: 90





	Whole Again

As his Father rips him to shreds, Michael looks him in those cruel, heartless eyes and wonder: is this bliss? The annihilation of all uncertainty. How, now, could Michael ever ask himself if Father truly loves him? 

He doesn’t.

Michael’s life is extinguished, and he sinks into the depths of the Empty. But he is too stretched to sleep - too many weapons, too many tools, too many treasures he handcrafted with love and his own Grace, most stolen from him and spread across the several planes of the universe by now, contain  _ him _ . Now that he is nothing, he is everything at once, and it hurts. 

Is this a taste of what it’s like to be God? No wonder he became so deranged.

But soon, thankfully, graciously soon, his stretched out mind begins to regather. Not his own doing. Michael is dead. He cannot  _ function _ . And yet his living being is becoming more concentrated every day. Someone is  _ collecting  _ him.

And now he’s being broken, smashed,  _ burnt _ ,  **_fused -_ **

Eyes. He can see. Not as many as he once had, but he can see well enough. He’s in a physical realm. The broken remains of his small creations lay scattered around a wooden floor of - he looks around - a cabin. Before his floating eyes is a young man he knows  _ very  _ well.

“Michael?” Adam breathes. “Did it work?”

He’s barely more than nothing. Six eyes floating above. No mouth to speak with.

Adam is thumbing a gold ring on his left hand. His wedding ring. Michael’s is on the right. They made them for each other, Michael remembers, painfully. There is yet more grace in the ring Adam is touching. 

Adam takes it off and Michael realises it is his last resort. He desperately tries to speak, tries to rip out a mouth from the void that is currently his body.

“ _ A _ -a- **_A_ ** da _ am _ ,” he gasps out, his voice becoming the wind. “ **N** **_o_ ** _ o.” _

Adam stares straight at him. “Michael? Are you there? I can just see eyes…”

Michael’s  _ tear _ -mouth turns up in a smile. “ **M** eeee _ e _ ,” he agrees.

Adam starts tearing up, although he is also smiling. “I thought I wouldn’t have enough… thank  _ fuck… _ ”

Michael drifts over to his partner and blinks at him. He can’t exactly do much else at the moment.

Adam collapses into a nearby armchair, beckoning Michael to come over. He does, but keeps about half his eyes surveying the damage Adam has done. There must be over fifty items here.

“Sorry,” Adam says, glancing at them as well. “But I had to do something. You know?”

Michael doesn’t know. When he thought Adam was gone, he gave up. He’s weak.

“A -  _ n _ oooh,” he says, trying to say “I’ll make new ones.” 

Adam shakes his head. “Don’t worry about talking right now. Just get some rest, ok? I’ve got this place warded to the high heavens. We can relax for a bit.”

Yes - Michael would like to rest. It is quite pleasant to be in one place again. Mostly.

He closes himself and allows himself to dissociate from reality. He missed this. Missed  _ him _ . 

Eventually, he can’t help but notice he is becoming… gloopy. He reconnects to reality and realises he’s started reforming an ethereal body of some kind. But it’s somewhat corporeal as well. The bottom is liquidy. He doesn’t like it.

He’s on Adam’s armchair. Where is Adam? “Adam?” he calls out in a panic, his voice wispy and faint, but  _ real. _

He sees movement as Adam quickly gets up from a bed in the corner, a laptop hurriedly set aside. “Michael, you’re awake. Hey,” he greets.

He comes over and attempts to grab Michael by the - hands? Whatever limbs Michael has grown out are like wet clay, but Adam awkwardly holds them in his anyway.

“You have saved me,” Michael says quietly. “Thank you. I failed to do the same.”

Adam looks away. “Yeah. Well, we’ll talk about it when you’re looking a little better.” Oh. Adam is mad. Yes, Michael understands.

“Um, I feel like I messed it up though. Are you meant to be like… this?” He indicates with a wave Michael’s gloopiness.

“It is ok,” Michael says. “Perhaps this is a larval stage I have not experienced. Fa - mm. I was created fully formed, you know.”

“I do know,” Adam says. He looks even more concerned now. “Okay, well, let’s hope you turn into a beautiful butterfly soon.”

Michael smiles. He’d like that. To be beautiful.

Eventually, the gloopiness passes, and Michael is able to shift between the ethereal and corporeal at will, for the most part. He is feeling more and more like himself every day.

Adam works a lot on his laptop, but Michael doesn’t dare intrude on his privacy. He owes him too much to question his activities. He merely sits on the chair, and waits to finish healing enough such that he can start doing things to repay the debt.

One day, he is ready. “Adam, let’s go,” he suggests to his partner. “You have been cooped up here too long.”

“You’re sure?” Adam asks with a frown. He inspects Michael carefully before agreeing.

Michael had thought they were in the middle of nowhere, but it’s a little more extreme than that - they are in the middle of  _ Purgatory _ . Completely empty, since the monsters got erased.

“So we’re not driving home?” Michael says drily. Adam shakes his head, and pulls out his kit. “We have to make a portal. Um, I can do it if you just want to watch-”

“I’ll help,” Michael says quickly, eagerly. Portals had been his specialty back when he used to be competent. Adam shrugs and they set up the spell without too much fuss. Without the monsters, Purgatory is a very clean, very calm, very  _ orderly  _ place. Good to cast spells in, and ideal for Michael to heal. 

They step out onto the roof of a tall building in a city. It’s the middle of the day, and the town is lively with people all over going about their day. Michael is bewildered.

“All of the humans are back,” he says to Adam, who gives him a slow, dumb look.

“Yeah?” 

“I thought Father destroyed everyone-” Michael can’t speak past that. His eyes start roaming around, staring at the world in disbelief.

“Michael? Take a deep breath.” Except Michael doesn’t breathe, and Adam knows that, and Adam has always known that, and yet he has always  _ said  _ that -

The frustration builds in him until he is giggling like a schoolgirl. “They won. Against Father. I thought there was no chance.”

“Ok.” Adam is reaching through his ghostly hand, clutching on to the immaterial. Michael provides him something solid, and he starts pulling him away.

“I didn’t want to be left alone, in the old universe, while he went to make a new one. I don’t want to be alone. But - but-”

“I know. Michael, I know.” There’s a tinge of sadness to Adam’s voice. “You got scared, and you made a bad decision. I understand.” They head downstairs, and through the hall to room 937. Adam has the key, and opens it up.

The apartment is neat, but dusty. Michael locates the duster and heads over to pick it up, but Adam yanks him back. “We need to talk. Ok?”

Michael owes Adam. “Yes,” he agrees, but he doesn’t want to talk. He wants to do.

Adam sits on the couch, and Michael kneels in front of him. “No, Michael - next to me. Come on.” He pats the seat beside him. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I have failed you,” Michael tells him gravely. “I owe you a great debt.”

“Ok. Just sit here, please?” Michael obeys.

“I found our rings hidden beneath a church in Minnesota,” Adam says. He slips Michael’s off his right hand and passes it to him. “Uh, I didn’t realise you’d be able to do the physical thing on Earth as well. So I guess you should wear it.”

“Thank you,” Michael says sincerely, slipping it on. He holds it close to his core. תקווה, hope, is engraved into the gold. Adam had thought it described him well, but how can that possibly be true?

“Do you wanna tell me how it got there?” Adam asks. Michael nods.

“I went there after your soul got destroyed.” Michael paused. Adam’s soul was right here. Not destroyed. “Taken, I suppose. But I assumed the worst. So I buried us together. I meant to attack Father directly, but I lost my way before I got there.”

“What happened?” Adam presses gently.

“Your brothers showed up. Left behind, like the movie. An alliance, I thought, would be more successful. They had the antichrist with them. But then Lucifer showed up. They let him stroll around their house as they pleased. I thought, how can these people deal with Father if they can’t handle Lucifer? I got upset. I went to talk to Father on my own. But…”

“Michael,” Adam breathes out. “I  _ know  _ you knew that was a bad idea.”

“Yes,” Michael says. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to do  _ something _ . As soon as Father answered, I lost my nerve. I thought he would let me be his son again. So I betrayed my allies. I’m sorry.”

“Michael, you know you don’t have to apologise to me, right? The person who was hurt here was you.” Adam takes his hand and squeezes it gently. “You understand that, right?”

“You - you kept telling me Father was not good for me and I should not attempt to reconcile-”

“For your sake. Not mine.” Adam smiles sadly. “He killed you, huh?”

Michael looks down. “You are being too easy on me. Please yell at me.”

“Nope,” Adam says lightly. “Not happening.”

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Michael, you haven’t done anything to me.”

“You resurrected me and spent a month with me in Purgatory while I healed. That is a debt worth repaying.”

Adam looks thoughtful. “Hmm. Now that you mention it, I did promise a lot of people favours while I was collecting all of that junk with your grace.”

Michael lights up. “Have any of them called them in yet?”

“Nope. But I’ll let you know.” 

That is something. Michael can be useful if he puts his mind to it.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’ve been up to?” Adam asks teasingly.

“What have you been up to?” Michael asks.

“Well, I passed out in the middle of a mountain hike and when I woke up my husband was gone. Freaked out trying to find him, contacted a few people, finally managed to contact Sam-” he makes a face -“who told me that everyone got yeeted out of existence for a few days, until they beat God and saved the day. Oh but you betrayed them and then God murdered you, but that was fine because it was all part of their plan.”  _ Now  _ Adam is seething. Michael blows cool air over his face in a non-scientific attempt to cool him down. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work.

“So yeah then I decided to grab your things. You’re always like, oh yeah my scales, I think they’re on Earth somewhere, so I knew I had a good chance of getting enough. I had to make a lot of friends in the supernatural community, though.” He makes a face. “So many that they’ve started using me to contact the other ones. I’m not a phone operator.”

Michael smiles. “That’s sweet.”

“Buh? How is that sweet?”

“You haven’t been turning them down, even though you clearly want to.”

“Well, yeah - I don’t want to be  _ rude. _ ” Adam is utterly horrified.

Michael gets up. “Hey, where are you going?” Adam calls after him.

“To make you some pancakes. I need to start repaying my debt.”

“Shut up about this debt thing!” Adam shouts at him as he conjures ingredients into the kitchen. He can cheat a little bit, just for today.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to yell at me?” he shouts back.

Adam stutters in his attempt to come up with a response, before coming up and shoving him mock-angrily.

“Fine. Then I’m helping.”

“Fine.” They settle into a comfortable silence as they make the pancakes. His partner at his side, Michael feels a joy he did not dream of regaining. He doesn’t think he deserves it. But, as he gives Adam a side glance, and Adam grins back, he thinks perhaps if Adam thinks he does, it will be all right. He smiles at the engraving on Adam’s ring - אמון. Trust.

  
  
  



End file.
